“176 million! That is the number of users who have joined the social media population in 2015. 41% of that population have shopped for their favorite products through online medium.”
Social selling is not the next evolution in e-commerce but the present trend that has already started making ripples everywhere. That said, here are some popular channels where social selling has mammoth possibilities.
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Start Selling at These Social Networking Sites
Facebook store – Taking over the world, one user at a time
Facebook store is an application that helps users to create a fully customized store for their products with minimal steps. The store also offers plenty of facilities like smart analytics for tracking customers, reward community with discounts, engaging events, etc.
Pinterest store – Pin your favourites, buy them later
According to Wishpond, more than 70% of Pinterest users visit the website to get inspiration for their next shopping. To exploit the advantage Pinterest rolled out the feature to buy products posted in its website in November 2015 with more than 60,000 buyable pins. The never-ending stream of images of which some of them can be bought for real is simply a great way of social selling.
Tumblr – Stumble over some brilliant artwork for sale
Tumblr is a goldmine for stunning images, until recently some of them were available for purchase too. Moreover, a study by comScore revealed that 50% of Tumblr users are millennials. That makes it a thriving market with enormous potential. Even if your business is not targeting millennials it is still possible to gain significant advantage from Tumblr since it gets indexed in search engines, is more mobile-friendly and is popular amidst bloggers.
Instagram – Creating instant shopping impulse through stores
Instagram is a great place to share images as well as sell products. Sellers can create their own unique identity, portray their products in good light using filters and reach out to intended user segments through use of hashtags. There is also the possibility of teaming up with celebrities and influencers to boost the reach to a larger population.
Boost Your Clothing Business Sales using Social Commerce
Clothing business, or for the matter any business now has the easy way of building their sales volumes through social commerce. After mobile commerce and eCommerce website development, social commerce is all set to be the next game changer in the digital community. Here is how your clothing business can gain more sales volumes through social commerce.
Create a sense of urgency
Buy it now! Limited Stocks only! Last day discount sale! What do you feel when you read these call to actions? You need to make a decision then and there or miss out on a great offer. That’s how leading social commerce websites ensure their cash counters keep ticking all year long. Use similar call to actions or if needed the same ones to make customers buy from your store immediately.
Give tips about latest fashion trends and link it to your clothing offerings
Confused customers lead to most shopping cart abandonments. If a social commerce will help its customers pick the best clothing match for their physical attributes and personal likes, chances are that they will keep coming back for more. From sizes to colors or even guides to latest fashion trends might help cut down the shopping cart abandonment rates.
Create a constant connect with customers
Right from login to checkout, give your customers an opportunity to stay connected to the brand socially. Also, ensure that the social profile is kept with bustling with activity with constant feeds regarding latest product releases, updates, and such relevant news. It is also necessary to make customers feel appreciated and valued by the brand through replies to their comments, being generous with ‘likes’ or following profiles in return, tagging them in social posts and so on.
Location based marketing
SoLoMo (Social, Local and Mobile) has given a new dimension to social media marketing. With the advent of BLE technology, it is easy for brands to easily tap into customer groups who are located in close proximity to their store locations. Your clothing business also easily reach out to customers in its near vicinity through location based marketing.
Ask all, take one – social chat before making a buying decision
Give customers the facility to chat with their friends about a product and its various varieties to help them take a better decision. It is worth noting that some e-commerce sites have already integrated chat interfaces with product comparisons to help customers take a better decision.
Give them a reason to buy
Thanks to internet now shopping has specific season. People shop for goodies anytime, anywhere and whenever they like. All they need is a simple reason. Give them a plain reason and customers will flock into your online cloth store easily. Say for instance: “Launch of the exclusive lustre black collection.” “Beat monday blues with Indigo blue collection.”
How to Optimize Your Clothing Social Commerce Store to Perfection
Now that you know what needs to be done to market your social commerce website, here is how you optimize it for maximum reach.
Use visual content
eMarketer, in a study confirmed that 87% of the Facebook content shared worldwide was images. Another research by Media Blog found that retweets increased by 35% when an image URL was added to the tweet. A clothing business, must hence, display its products in a visually enticing manner to gain maximum leverage from social media.
Use light backgrounds for images
Vibrant colors can be better appreciated in lighter backgrounds. Have a look at online stores of Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel, Prada, etc. They all use lighter backgrounds where the clothing color can be appreciated fully without any distractions. Contrasting backgrounds or live locations may also be used provided they don’t bring down the color density of the clothing being sold.
Use positive reviews for building reputation
Reviews can make or break the reputation of a business. In a social media dominated business environment, it is necessary for a business to take advantage of the positive reviews it’s customers has given. Social endorsements from customers are far more powerful than a full fledged direct marketing effort.
Use hashtags to drive in more traffic
Brands that have cracked the hashtag code are breaking sales records. Hashtags is unbeatably the best way to expose your store to social users who are posting or searching posts related to their queries. Retailers like Amazon, Adidas and eBay tied up with Twitter to market their offerings using hashtags like #buy, #win, #AmazonCart, #@MyAmazon, etc. These twitter posts resulted in conversion rates touching as high as 56% during peak points.
Use CTAs to drive organic traffic
Use strategic CTAs (Call-to-actions) to get the most out of your social media optimization efforts. Insert relevant CTAs on your Facebook Page, Twitter profile, LinkedIn profile, Pinterest account, Instagram handle, to urge customers to enact an action immediately.
Also Read: How to Build a Social Media App? | 7 Top Social Media App Features
Pay Per Click – A Quick and Efficient Way to Magnify Social Commerce
Remember those ‘suggested posts’ and ‘You may like this” kind of posts that pop up uninvitedly in your newsfeed? They are all PPC campaigns.
PPC grows customer base and helps to connect with searchers who are looking products or services that are relevant to your offerings. Also, PPC has proven to be a reliable way in bringing in prospective buyers who might just find and buy what they need from your social commerce site.
Much to the advertiser’s delight, PPC gives higher RoI on the advertising spend. Cost-per-conversions are always economical and the data reported is also highly reliable. Social networking websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter are popular for their high lead yielding PPC campaigns.
Social commerce has arrived. In the coming days, the world is going to be more social about its buying interests and opinions. Let your online clothing store not miss out on the social tide that was washing across the globe.
Set up a steady social presence, create a customer-friendly interface for shopping and make use of PPC to gain all the leverage your store can in social circles.
Create an e-commerce Store with Fantastic Social Presence Right Now!
Social media gets fetched in search engine rankings all the time. Do social media sites help in search engine ranking. In particular, does Pinterest help in SEO?
Hi Folami Imani! Your Pinterest activity will definitely add to your search engine ranking. It is a known fact that social media activity increases search engine ranking and also incoming traffic to a website. Pinterest is no exception to this rule!
Building traffic for a website or blog is never easy. I have been trying hard. Was wondering if I can use traffic from StumbleUpon Paid Advertise?
Definitely. You will gain a lot since Stumbleupon charges a minimal amount for large traffic volumes. Moreover, there is also a higher chance of earning significant income from the platform.